


Jormungand

by eggshelled



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: But Only a Little Bit - Freeform, Cultural Differences, Cultural Misunderstandings, F/M, Gen, Interpretation of fantasy vikings, Jon Snow knows nothing, Kidnapping, Sansa plays the Game, Slavery, Slow Build, Viking AU, Viking!Jon, Worldbuilding, not historically accurate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5100983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggshelled/pseuds/eggshelled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They came on a sea serpent during a storm and swallowed the city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sacking

_May the gods have mercy on us all. Please. Please have mercy._

 

Sansa gripped the railing before her with white knuckles and tried not to gag at the smell of smoke and blood in the air. Down below, the guards were fighting the men who had come from the shore during the night. Her nurse had gone to collect several of the other girls in the lower quarters and the old woman had yet to return. Off in the distance there was the high, shrill squeal of a pig - of what Sansa hoped was only a pig.

 

At fifteen Sansa prized her independence but now more than ever she wished to cast off that prize and run behind her father’s legs. The hotter weather, the general stink of the city, the cultural differences; all of these things Sansa had adapted to but nothing had prepared her for this. This didn’t happen in the King’s Court. It happened at Bear Island, the outskirts of places that were never well defended. This was madness.

 

The city was awash in bright orange, columns of black smoke curled towards the sky and down below in the insanity, people shoved and pushed and fought to flee only to be met with swords or chains. Sansa stayed above it all and prayed that they would not be able to enter the keep. Surely even without the bulk of the army the pillagers wouldn’t be able to break the gates.

 

But even this lie that she told herself was proven to a falsehood. She could see the guardsmen being overwhelmed; the dark furs and leathers of the men that prowled the seas and the North where not even Sansa’s own countrymen dared journey blotted out the black and yellow colors of the Baratheon household. Sansa’s heart was in her throat, nestled behind her tongue carefully while her eyelids fluttered and her body prepared and denied itself from swooning. Battle cries of the men rousing themselves and trying to hold the threat back while the cavalry from the bay came back ashore combated the screams of the civilian populace that tried to push its way further near the gates of the castle.

 

Sansa relinquished the rail and moved back into the flickering shadows of the corridor. Her skirts moved around her legs as she hurried back to her room to bar the door and drag her maid in with her. Perhaps they could hide; perhaps the cavalry that had surely been called and had heard the call would come in time to prevent those men who came at night under the cover of a moonless sky in silent ships from infiltrating the heart of the city.

 

Someone would come. Not even foolish, oafish King Robert would leave the city so unguarded while he made war in the East with his army. There would be plans of some sort. Plans that anticipated an attack on the city when it was at its most vulnerable despite the kingdom being in relative peace; there would be houses and knights and soldiers and even mercenaries to answer the call.

 

The sprawled body of a nurse revealed itself before her several doors in front of the staircase. Her old throat was cut. Her white apron was stained red and beneath her was the dark shine of blood. Sansa stumbled to an awkward stop. Her knuckles popped from the strain of holding her skirts so tightly. The air in her body fled and robbed her of sense.

 

_Please. Please no._

 

A tall man in leathers and metal buckles and heavy boots carrying an axe turned to her slowly. She must have made a soft, horrified noise upon finding the body. His hair was shaved at the sides but trailed down past his shoulder blades. He smiled at her and the dark patches on his face flaked and cracked at the movement. He spoke in a harsh language she didn’t understand and began to move toward her. He slipped his axe back into the loop at his hip.

 

Gasping and shaking her head, Sansa took small steps back. She found her voice, finally: “Please, do not hurt me. Please. Please don’t hurt me.” Her mouth trembled and her eyes burned, vision blurring.

 

The man spoke again and his voice was lower in timbre as if speaking to a spooked animal, his hands raised at his sides even while he took long, steady steps to her.

 

Sansa spun and ran.

 

She heard the steady thud of his boots hitting the floor after her, sprinting in a headlong rush at her. She rounded the bend and scrambled at the door handle. If she could only get to her father, to a guard, someone anyone please no.

 

A heavy hand gripped her shoulder and an arm slid around her waist. "No!" She screamed tried to fling herself forward, nails scratching at the door.

 

The man behind her laughed, hefted her against his hip and held a blade to her neck. "Don't move, pretty thing. Don't. Move." He rasped against the side of her face. Sansa inhaled and exhaled a sob.

 

"Please let me go." She whispered and thought of her father, calling her name as he rushed with his blade drawn. She thought of Jaime the Kingslayer in his gold armor. She thought of a simple city guard rushing to save the eldest daughter of the House of Stark.

 

No one rushed the corridor. There was no one but her and the man who held her.  

 

The man holding her sighed, as if he were exasperated with a child. He shook her when she tried arching from him. “Enough of that now.” His other hand moved and there was a brief shock of pain behind her neck, and everything went dark and quiet.

 

In the chaos, as parts of the city burned, and wildmen roamed rampant across the poorly guarded kingdom, Sansa Stark, eldest daughter of Winterfell and betrothed of Joffrey Baratheon, went missing.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Sansa awoke feeling nauseous. She moaned as she did so, stomach rolling and a bright light in her eyes. The distant sound of what in her dream had been thunder and a castle crumbling around her, now sharpened into voices bellowing in a strange, heathen language. 

And her nausea seemed to die a quick death at that realization. The wildlings, the Iron Islanders, the strange folk from across sea and ice - the raid, no the  _ incursion _ , of King’s Landing, the slaughter, the screams - 

“ _ Oh den vackra en är vaken _ !” The words were ugly and strange to the ear - she had never before heard such speech. It was frightening enough until Sansa realized she was lying down on something soft, her hands tied in front of her. A grizzled looking man, the one who spoke, leaned over and grinned. The yawning crevasse where his left eye had once been crinkled. “ _ Kan jag knulla henne _ ?” He leaned closer but he was abruptly stopped by a younger, not quite as deep, voice. 

“ _ Rör inte henne, Rand _ .” 

The one eyed man laughed, but his expression turned ugly and he spat in the direction the other voice came from. 

“ _ Jag gör vad jag vill, liten jävel _ .” And he took a shuddering step towards her. 

The sound of a sword being unsheathed, a sound Sansa had become accustomed to while in King’s Landing, and she saw, despite the fulgent force of the sun shining down, the unmistakable flash of sharp steel pointed at the man’s chest. She could not see its wielder, somewhere behind and to the side from her. 

“ _ Hon är under mitt beskydd. _ ” There was a moment of tense silence, and Sansa registered that the voices around them had suddenly quieted in a nearly frantic anticipation. Were these men about to fight? Were they - gods above - fighting over who would first get to kill her? Rape her? 

All the pitiless, dreadful conversations she had ever had with Queen Cersei came flooding back to in within the span of one moment. Tears glazed her eyes and she fought to muffle a whimper.

She didn’t succeed, as evident by the one eyed man who looked down at her. He was positioned in such a way that he was backlit by the sun and he looked all the more menacing for his face looked to be carved from shadows. 

He didn’t move, that Sansa could see, but his challenger moved forward and the blade found a resting place at his neck. 

“ _ Fortsatt _ !” 

And a shadow moved, boots stopped near her shoulder and Sansa craned her neck to look up. The man, a young man her age or barely older, stood with his feet apart, and wore a heavy black fur mantle, boots and a dark leather tunic - he was handsome. Or he would have been, if Sansa had been so inclined to think about anything positive about her current situation. 

His face was contorted into a scowl. The one eyed man spat again, to the side, knocked the blade away, and stalked off heavily. 

Abruptly the boat, for she was on some ship or boat, she recognized the rocking of the waves. 

The blade hissed as it slid back in its sheath. The man looked down at Sansa - oh yes, he was quite young - and looked awkward, no presence of that confident voice seemed to be left. He knelt beside her and untied her hands. 

“He won’t bother you. None of them will, if they do, they answer to me.” He murmured. 

Sansa sat up slowly and opened her mouth to reply to the dark haired stranger with dark gray eyes but she found her focus stolen by the tall men surrounding her, at oars and fixing a large sail above them. All speaking a foreign language. She could almost feel Cersei at her ear, shaking with laughter. 

“If you tell me that I will be safe, here, I will have to consider you a liar, sir.” She whispered and tried to ignore the crack in her voice. 

The dark haired stranger dipped his head, in acknowledgment or defeat she was not sure, but he looked up. “You will be safe. You are safe. I swear to you.” 

Sansa leaned against the warm grain of the strange ship and rubbed her wrists. A girl of twelve, even fourteen, would have believed him. The Sansa she had been before King’s Landing and the Lannisters would have thought his words the equivalent of a knight’s oath. 

Sansa knew the worth of knights. And perhaps this one was better than them. 

She nodded and tried to blink away her tears, look regal and proud in the face of salt air and burning wind. “You’ve given me your word.” 

He nodded once grimly. 

Sansa swallowed, desperation beginning to panic and claw at the inside of her throat like a living thing. “Your name.” She faltered and had to swallow again, again, before finding her voice. “What is your name?” 

“Jon. Jon Snow.” His voice was still as grim as ever. He was terrible at introductions, Sansa found. And he had a bastard’s name. 

“I am Sansa Stark. Handmaiden in training to the Queen Regent.” The lie flowed easily off her tongue despite her terror. Lord Baelish would have been proud. Jon stared at her, mouth a straight line. “Sir Jon Snow, I need you to swear to me again. Say that I will be safe. Please. Swear it to me again now that I know your name.” The implications of knowing his name and extracting another oath from him could not be lost, even on a savage. 

Jon looked her in the eye, steady and dark, and as if she were the only person on the vessel, and gave her his word again. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and the ever feared google translations are below. english to swedish - and i'm sorry. i know the awful things google translate does to languages. 
> 
>  
> 
> Oh the pretty one is awake
> 
> Can I fuck her?
> 
> Don’t touch her, Rand.
> 
> I’ll do what I want, little bastard.
> 
> She’s under my protection.
> 
> Move


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

Sansa

 

For days the small ship bobbed - if it could be called a ship - on easy waves and gusty gales. The men took turns at the oars, humming as one or singing in low, dark tones in a foreign language as eerie and unknown to her as witchcraft. 

The one who had threatened her, Rand she believed his name was, gave her a wide berth even though she would catch him staring at her without shame. But Jon Snow kept his word. He guarded her well. He kept the other men from her, and she realized she was not the only one aboard the ship who had been taken. Only women and children were taken, she realized. When she had first met with the others, an icy cold flush of fear had swept through her; she could only pray that they wouldn't recognize her. And they hadn't.  Sansa had not walked among the common people, reached out to them with understanding and kindness and food as Margery had. They believed her story of being a handmaiden. Few people even knew of Sansa Stark, few knew Joffery had a fiancée. It was a way to ensure that once Sansa had come to King's Landing, she had no escape. 

Even still, she worried and kept to herself. She would prefer not the be brought up as ransom, or a prize to be had for her name or title. Instead of engaging the other captives, she watched her captors. A strange, yet not unheard of mix, Ironborn and wildlings, dark leathers and furs. 

It was not always such an easy alliance; history had assured that and the mix of winter and sea made for uneasy friends, but the Ironborn wanted to shake loose from the shackles of the realm and the wildlings wanted beyond the Wall. Beyond horrors only they knew, they and the Ironborn. Sieges had been launched against the North, but it had petered out to nothing but the occasional raids. 

King Robert and Ned Stark had made sure to crush what rebellions there were. 

Sansa noted, with no small amount of bitterness, that they had been mistaken. They had taken their plundering elsewhere and had come to the capital when the threat was gone. Sansa could only wonder if this was a large, ambitious raid made only special for the long time of peace from the sons of plunder, or if this foretold something else entirely. 

There was hardly any great prize in capturing servants and handmaidens. 

Or maybe , she thought as she gave a brief look in the direction of the rowing men who began to take up their strange, haunting dark song,  maybe there is. For them. But not for any kingdom. The thought sent a shiver down her spine, curling to the tips of her toes and it set her hair on end. 

The song was unlike any of the others. It pitched louder, still low and shadowed with words she couldn't understand, but the tone of it beat back the sounds of the sea and wind. Sansa pressed her face to the side of the ship. From her position she could see the bow of the ship, a rising serpent with a gaping maw. It bobbed over the waves, spurred by each stroke of the oars. The carved scales of the serpent were dulled, smooth patches gave away its age but dark splotches of blood and tar gave it a fearsome quality.

Sansa looked past the serpent’s head and saw in the distance the rise of rock, of land. She knew why the song was different now. The serpent had come home. 

 

Jon

 

He missed the smell of snowy ground whenever he had to leave, but all men had to take ship, on the raids, else it was roaming the various wild lands, or terrorizing the east. 

He rowed with the others and felt a secret joy all wildlings felt when he saw the snowy, dark shore. The Ironborn finished their hum, rising and lowering like the tides of the sea once the shore became visible. Rarely did the men of the sea sing when they saw shorelines unless it was at the sight of enemies. 

Jon was not one of the Ironborn and he never would be. When he sang, it was a song of ice and snow, the ground beneath his feet and the Long Winter. 

The three other wildlings in the ship joined him, voices combating the wind, and the Ironborn chimed in, humming in a constant tone that provided a decent backdrop of noise for the song. 

None of their songs were meant to be pretty, not like the people of the South or the East. 

Their songs were like their people; hard, iniquitous. The Ironborn were southerners too, but they were closer to the wildlings in spirit. 

Jon felt the ache of the oar pull at his shoulders, felt the wind and salt tear into his throat. He welcomed it at the sight of land drawing nearer. Even though land meant he would still have to find a way to keep Sansa safe. He could not say he understood why he did what he did - why he swore to her as he did. He could imagine all the teasing that would be heaped on him once they made shore. 

Still. It seemed wrong, a greater waste, to not obey her plea. He had been unable to break from the power of her plea. Mance and Tormund told him he was soft, too soft at times. They were right. 

Jon killed only in self defense, and at times not even then, when the raids took place. He didn't rape. He stopped those who did when he was near, with violence if it ever came to it. He hadn't gotten so talented at battle just by fighting the enemies he and his made. It led to him getting his ass thrown about, and him doing the throwing from time to time. 

For all their misgivings, they were still his people, and he was still one of theirs.

Jon was a wildling but he was no son of plunder. He was no one’s son at all. No one but the North. And it was calling him. 


End file.
